1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a safety catch apparatus for a gas burner and, particularly, to a safety catch apparatus, which is harder to be operated by children, to avoid being misused by the children and fulfill the safety regulations of all countries.
2. Description of Related Art
Due to the times having changed, a lighter or a burner have become a major fire taking device in our daily life instead of the match. A conventional burner such as the gas torch is loved by us very much and popularly used because it provides advantages of offering strong flames and being possible for the user to hold with one hand and to carry about him conveniently.
The burner is so popular that it is often placed around unintentionally in our daily lives and it is very easy for the children to reach such that the children may play with it due to the behavior of imitation and the curiosity thereof as soon as the burner is taken away by them. Accordingly, it is very possible to cause an accidental fire carelessly to endanger the safety of our lives and properties. Hence, it is too numerous to enumerate fire accidents caused by the children playing fires. It has been investigated that the safety switch of the conventional burner is designed to disarm easily based on the factor of being operated conveniently but it gives the children have chances to take fire with it jokingly to result in unexpected consequences.
According to the preceding safety consideration, governments of European countries and United States have made safety regulations concerning the burner and demand forcedly that the burner has to be provided with a safety catch apparatus. The U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,293,782 and 6,296,476, which are owned by the inventor, are typical examples obeying the safety regulations, that is, the burner is in a state of locking while not in use and it is necessary to disarm the safety catch apparatus before the fire being possible to be taken while in use. The operation of the preceding two U.S. patents are more difficult because of the step of disarming being added such that the children are unable to unlock the safety catch apparatus during playing the burner and the accidental disasters can be decreased substantially.
The crux of the present invention resides in that a safety catch apparatus is provided to comprise a fixing part, a stir part and a catch part. Wherein, the fixing part has two opposite sealing covers joining to each other and a circumferential edge with a central passage clearance at the periphery thereof and a projection post and at least a guide piece at the front and the rear surface thereof respectively. The stir part is held and located by way of the sealing covers and has a stir ring corresponding to the circumferential edge. An inner sector wing is perpendicular to the stir ring and is received in the passage clearance with an elastic expander disposed between the sector wing and the inner wall of the fixing part. The catch part has two opposite fitting holes at the middle portion thereof for engaging with the projection posts such that another elastic expander can be disposed between one of the fitting holes and the outer wall of the fixing part. A connecting rod at the top of the catch part to connect with and to move with an end of the stir ring, and two opposite support plates of the catch part extends downward. Once the stir ring is rotationally pushed to compress the elastic expanders, the connecting rod can rotate synchronously to separate the support plates from preset stop plates at the inner wall of an outer casing on the gas burner such that the entire safety catch apparatus can be pressed down and the guide piece can move downward along a rail groove preset on the inner wall of the outer casing to perform the gas ignition procedure. Once the two elastic expanders are not pressed down, the two elastic expanders may stretch and the catch part may restore to the original position thereof to result in the support plates pressing against the stop plate to form a state of locking.